


put your best face on

by ridasverkisto



Series: The Plot Bunny Kennel [5]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: (Warnings for the second chapter), Also tentatively tagging:, Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - The Magnus Archives Fusion, Canon-Typical The Spiral Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Stranger Content (The Magnus Archives), May Or May Not Be Continued, No Spoilers for TMA, Sort Of, more like elements are taken from TMA but not explicitly stated, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-20 16:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30007617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridasverkisto/pseuds/ridasverkisto
Summary: When Allen comes back from the Asia Branch, he’s the same as ever. Tall, thin, bland.You’d think not-dying would change a person.
Series: The Plot Bunny Kennel [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/614851
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set nebulously post-Noah’s Ark arc, but before the attack on the Black Order. It’s also been a long time since I read or watched that section of the series and this was also written on like, 5 hours of sleep out of 72? so please forgive any glaring inaccuracies.

Honestly speaking, Lenalee isn’t the biggest fan of the Black Order—to  _ put it lightly. _ But, there is something to be said for homecomings; to return to a home, to the people you call family, and return safely to them even after horrible things.

Komui’s always waited for her—and she’s always come back. And it’s not just her this time: it’s Lavi, and Kanda, and Chaozi and so many others. And  _ Allen _ . 

Allen, who they’d thought dead. Missing, after that fateful encounter in China, months ago. He was  _ supposed _ to be dead, but his Innocence saved him. He’s  _ home _ , safe and breathing and alive.

Lenalee startles when Lavi bumps her shoulder with his, green eyes bright when she glances up at him. 

“Looks like the beansprout’s still being stalked by the Crow,” he says, tipping his head in the direction of one of the tables across the room. And, for a second, Lenalee can’t quite see Allen—then, she catches the flash of his dark hair, stark against Link’s blond.

Right, there he is—sitting easily, poking at his food blandly as Link stares him down. She frowns, slightly. 

“I hate that they’re tailing him for something that’s not his fault,” she replies, just as quietly. “He saved our lives!”

Lavi shrugs, still looking at Allen and Link, sitting quietly across from each other. “Beansprout can take care of himself—you know how he and Yuu are.”

Right. Lenalee almost wants to sigh. Stupid, stubborn, idiot  _ boys. _

Just then, Allen seems to catch sight of them over Link’s shoulder, and smiles faintly at them. Lenalee smiles back, hoping she looks encouraging. Supportive.  _ You-can-do-it, Allen _ !

When she looks back, Lavi’s still watching the table. His green eyes are unreadable. The back of her neck prickles.

“What’s the matter?” she asks curiously. “Lavi?”

Lavi blinks, before turning back to her with all the energy of a rowdy puppy. “Oh, nothing! Just thinking, that’s all. The Panda’s been talking about going to check out some libraries, yanno?” he pouts. “But how’m I gonna annoy Yuu and Allen while I’m gone? It’s a travesty!”

Lenalee laughs and rolls her eyes. “Right,” she agrees. Lavi has always liked needling Kanda, enjoying his reactions; and, more recently, he’s taken to trying to needle reactions past a raised eyebrow from Allen. Lenalee wants a picture, if he succeeds.  _ So much. _

Allen seems like he’d be pretty cute, if he smiled! 

——

Ever since they’d gotten back from the  _ fucking Ark _ , the damn beansprout had been acting—weird. Except not really, because everything he did was exactly what he’d done before: being quiet, stonewalling  _ everyone _ with that fucking placid face, towering like a fucking beanpole over everyone, even the idiot rabbit.

“Kanda?” 

The voice—it takes him a second to place it. Placid, calm. He glowers, hand dropping to Mugen’s hilt as he turns, hair on the back of his neck prickling. 

“What, moyashi?” he snaps, impatiently. The fucking beansprout’s always put him on edge, and he doesn’t have the energy to deal with him or his fucking guard dog. Link eyes Kanda blandly.

“Walker,” he says, firm. “No contact.  _ At all _ .”

Allen blinks coolly, but nods after a second. “Right. Sorry.”

As they walk away, Kanda bristles after them. Fucking tall asshole beansprout. At least he’d finally gotten his hair cut while he’d been gone—chopped to his shoulders, like a spidery ink wash.

Ugh.

——

When Link had been briefed about Allen Walker, he’d expected someone very different from what he’d gotten. He can’t put his finger on why, or what he’d  _ actually expected _ , but he just. Had. And that bothers him, more than he’d like to admit. 

There’s no reason for it to do so—for all that Walker’s a walking security breach and the host to a Noah at that, he’s not unpleasant. Calm, biddable, placid. The fact that it bothers him isn’t rational.

And strangely, that makes him more suspicious. So he watches, closely, and pretends to let his guard down, just a little bit.

And just a little, just sometimes, he sees it. Where something slips through, like a trick of the light. 

Sometimes, Walker looks—taller, in the shadows. Disproportionate. Like his torso is too long for his body, or his neck is longer than it should be. But the moment that Link looks at him properly, he looks utterly normal. As if Link had been merely seeing things.

His eyes are glassy, too. Empty, like looking into a hall of mirrors, endlessly reflecting. The green should be vibrant, but the more Link looks, the more dull it seems.

And, even more rarely, there’s this tug of—unfamiliarity, when Walker manages to pass him by unnoticed from the bathroom on the way to bed. Where for a split second, he doesn’t recognize him, and there’s just. A stranger in his place, smiling placidly down at Link.

Link writes everything down, makes a record of everything he notices.

Lvellie never responds to any of these notes.

Mainly because Link never sends them.

How can he? For all he can tell, he’s just having slips of the memory. And if these really were signs of the Noah taking over—then wouldn’t Link be dead already?

——


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot bunny bit me with more inspiration, so have a bit more. Don’t think I’m ever going to fully flesh out this AU, but it’s a fun little thing lol

The first time Cross sees Allen in the Ark, he knows. Because that person, that placid, bland piece of shit? That’s not the brat he raised.

It’s not even fucking _trying_. Black hair, taller than the runt ever was, not even the damn pentacle scar the kid had. How it’s managed without ever showing even a speck of Innocence either he’ll never understand. 

So when the thing’s brought to him after the whole business with the Ark, eyes glassy and empty, he _hates_ it. Everything for Mana, for Nea, for Allen as the fucking host—it’s gone. Worthless, now, if this thing killed the kid. It’s certainly taken his place so easily that it makes his stomach turn.

Even restrained by the Crows as it is, it still just watches him with that fake, skin deep smile—the only thing it has in common with his idiot apprentice. He’d like to say it’s the host. To be replaced by Nea as his memories overtake it—but that isn’t true. Allen’s already been replaced.

It doesn’t hurt. He never would’ve missed the brat in the first place, no matter how reluctantly fond of him he is. 

The thing watches him as he levels Judgement right between its glassy, plastic eyes. The Junior Bookman watches him with wide eyes, looking between them with alarm—but not moving to intervene.

The Bookmen know all about things that are older, stronger, more malevolent than the Holy War. Than the Vatican, or the Noah Clan. Things like _this_.

They are, after all, Marked by one of them, one and all.

Cross stares the thing down. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you _right now_.” 

It blinks at him, a mask of fear twisting its face. “Master—“

Its eyes are gleaming with satisfaction at the cold hate and unease that chills his spine. It _knows_ that he knows. It knows and it’s fucking enjoying it.

His finger tightens on the trigger, and Bookman Junior tenses.

“One. Reason.”

“Please, Master, I haven’t done anything—“ 

It sounds helpless. Pathetic. That placid face breaking into a mockery of hopelessly confused fear. He didn’t care about the brat, but seeing this fucking _mockery_ fooling everyone makes him want to kill it. Shoot it until it’s face isn’t even a face anymore, just so many shards of wood and resin and whatever horrific monstrosity it uses in place of blood.

His breath doesn’t catch, even as his finger tightens just a tiny bit on the trigger. It’s eyes gleam with amusement, and he just _knows_ that shooting it is exactly what it wants. Can the Crows’s talismans even truly bind it? They’re meant for mortal things, humans, but this—

He lowers the gun. Glares at it.

“Get the fuck out.”

It blinks, playing at being startled and confused, shaken, but the Crows pull it out of his rooms in short order. He ignores anything it tries to say, because if he doesn’t he’s certain he’ll just shoot it on the spot, playing into its fucked up game or not.

Bookman Junior watches him carefully.

“Why?”

Cross takes a heavy drink of his wine, the weight of Judgement comforting in his palm.

“Pretty sure you Bookmen know more about things like this than me,” he says, deliberately not answering. “But that?” he doesn’t look at the door.

“That’s not my idiot apprentice.”

——

Wandering blank halls of endless doors, he—it—she—they? He, no, he’s a _he_ —is hopelessly lost.

He doesn’t know how he got here. The hallways are always straight, but he never reaches the end of them.

He’s—someone. No, Someone. Better. He can’t remember who—he had a name once, right? It started with an A—or maybe an R, or an N. He can’t remember.

Every time he looks in the mirrors, he’s not alone. There’s someone else peering back at him, dark skin and golden eyes, just as lost as he is. Sometimes, they try to talk to him.

He can’t understand the words, mostly, but sometimes he can. 

His arm hurts a lot, too. He feels thin and wrung out and hollow, like he’s being drained dry ever-so-slowly by things he doesn’t know or understand.

Why’s he here?

What’s he supposed to do?

Where is he?

He doesn’t know. Or understand. Or—

He catches sight of that shadowy person again, in the mirrors. They look at him, so sadly. 

_—Allen._

What’s that?

_Allen, ple—_

“Allen.” Is that his name?

_You—ve to—member—!_

Allen. That’s his—that’s his name. And the figure—the Fourteenth. He never used to look like this though, he suddenly knows. Allen looks around, suddenly all too aware of where he is. His Innocence _aches_.

The hallways seem to laugh, stretching on into impossible infinities.

_Allen, do you remember now?_

The Fourteenth sounds tired, sad. Allen places a hand on the mirror. He looks like Tyki. 

“What happened?”

_You died. Joyd_ _put a hole in your heart—and then that_ Thing _found you._

The—right. Allen remembers now. The way it had crept up on him in the moonlight, pale and impossible and stretched grotesquely out over its many horrible limbs. The way it had smiled at him and grabbed him tight, swallowing him, swallowing his horrible fear and terror—

And then the emptiness inside. That horrible thing, sipping his memories out of his head.

And the yellow door that had opened for him.

The maze of never ending hallways and unremarkable doors and mirrors and paintings.

The Fourteenth peering out from the mirrors, growing clearer every time he looks.

He still has blank spots, he knows he doesn’t remember everything, that there are things he’s lost forever—but when he looks in the mirror, when the Fourteenth can get through—he remembers. Not everything, but enough. Pieces.

“What’s your name?” He asks, because it feels—right. He should know the name of the ghost that possesses him and is trapped here with him all the same.

The Fourteenth looks sad. Tired.

_Nea. Nea Walker. I’m your Uncle._

His uncle.

Does he have an uncle? There was—there was someone. A kind smile, face paint, those words— _never stop, keep_...keep what? He can’t remember.

He looks back at the mirror, and the other person in the mirror bangs their fist on the other side of it. 

_——!_

They say something. He can’t understand. He looks away, down the never ending hallways. He—he has to get out.

Right. Get out. 

There’s someone at the end of the hall, twisted hair and hands too big for their body. 

He looks back at the mirror, at the reflection trying hopelessly to get his attention. When he looks back to the hallways, it’s gone.

He keeps walking.

That’s what he’s supposed to do, right? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t anticipate there being any more of this, but just as a note:
> 
> Yes, the Bookmen are connected to the Entities. Like I was gonna let that slip by me lmao

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of a fusion with the Magnus Archives here, which is my current hyperfixation. Remembered that Allen has a lot of ties to clowns and the circus and my brain went into overdrive, because who doesn’t like killer mannequins with style? Also that creeping sort of horror is one of my favorites, so...
> 
> I also have another unfinished plotbunny inspired from the same source that’s a lot less...coherent? That I may post eventually.


End file.
